Parlays are a fantastic bet for sportsbooks because their risk is far less than their reward, so their long term profit is all but assured. Most bettors think that it does for them, but they are almost all wrong. The only way you can come out ahead over the long term, then, is if the three wins occurs proportionally more often than the other seven outcomes. The problem is that three team parlays typically pay off at 6/1 or worse. In order to break even over the long term, then, you would need the bet to pay at least 7/1, and you would obviously need better than that to make a profit. If you do a three game parlay then there are eight possible outcomes of the three games as far as your bets are concerned – In each of the other seven you will lose the money you have bet. In each game there are two possible outcomes – your team covers and you win, or your team doesn’t cover and you lose (we’ll assume that a push isn’t relevant here). In fact, sometimes parlaying in baseball can be a good idea.īefore we look at why baseball is different, let’s look at why parlays are generally a bad idea using football as an example Let’s say we are going to parlay three games against the spread. There are situations in baseball that can be different, though.
Most people who are familiar with the intricacies of sports betting will tell you that parlays are for suckers.
